Flatbed cutter or router table? Trying to decide between a shop sabre pro 10'x5' or colex sharpcut converyor 10'x5'. Completely different animals I know, trying to determine which would be better for me.
Shop sabre would be fitted with 5hp spindle 6 tool changer, optiscout, ecocam knife, 17 hp rotary vane vacuum pump, dust collection, popup pins, etc. So setup pretty similarly to a colex with it's 3 tool head. The colex is pretty stock, with the 3 hp spindle, oscillating knife, coro knife, kiss cutting knife, and their 6 pump vacuum system and their dust collection.. Cost wise I can save about 40k going the shop sabre route. Can also upgrade to a 10hp 12 tool changer spindle on the shop sabre for a few grand more.
What I'm looking to do? I have pretty consistent orders for runs of small aluminum signs quantities of (100) to (2,000), .040, .063, .080 with rounded corners and holes, printed vinyl stuck before cutting, typical size would be 8"x4", 10x7, 18x12. From my research vacuum hold down will be my biggest need for routering small signs from thin sheets as well as misting or cool air. In addition to the small aluminum signs, we also do a fair amount of die cut decals. We use our summa plotter and just cut through with more blade depth. Works good but on large orders it takes a lot of labor popping the decals out, seems it would be a huge time saver and more efficient to be doing these on a flatbed cutter. You have to just barley not cut all the way through on a plotter so they don't fall out and jam the pinch rollers while cutting..
Those would be my immediate wants out of a machine. The aluminum signs being a little higher on the list. But there is also opportunity to be had. We don't go after shape cut signs, currently but would like to offer them. Same for carved signs, we do them for good customers, but sub out and just do the install. So I'd like to bring that in house too. I like the idea of trimming printed wrap panels on a flatbed cutter, banners, posters, etc. We all know the possibilities with a router or a flatbed cutter.
So is there a machine that does well at both, routering and cutting/trimming? Will the colex handle routering these aluminum sign well enough? I did a colex demo, sent in my material to see how it handles small aluminum signs. The demo went well. They cut the signs face up, we talked about cutting the regis and flipping the sheet, but for demo sake they cut it face up. When I received the cut samples back you can see where some aluminum chips burn themselves into the laminate. I also notice the edges are super smooth on about half the sides of the signs and then some have a sort of smooth jaggediness to them. I don't know if that's because not enough vacuum with colex 6 little pumps? Or maybe it didn't get dialed in because it was a demo, or maybe it the lack of a misting or cool air option on the colex? The shop sabre has a misting option. The sample was only a 4'x2' piece of aluminum but I would hope it could hold a piece that size.. This has me a little concerned, but also everything seems to say the colex has a great finish when cutting acrylic so I'm not sure why the aluminum would cut like this? Would post a pic but you can't really see it in a pic, only feel it slightly. Maybe this is typical when cutting smaller parts? It's not anything that would fail quality inspection or anything. Just not consistent on all sides I guess.
With the shop sabre, I'm very confident I can cut the aluminum signs. And it's a more robust router with a much higher gantry clearance. I could really expand carved sign and other CNC offerings. What I'm not so sure about is if it's even worth fitting a shop sabre with the optiscout and tanginetiel/coro knifes. It doesn't seem to be shop sabres focus, print to cut, and the little info I can get from the internet suggests their workflow with the optiscout is not as smooth and easy as it is on the colex. And without the conveyor I don't think you can really do roll to roll. I just can't really find any good info on how well a shop sabre performs at kiss and die cutting decals, or trimming printed graphics, that kind of stuff.
-I also am considering the smaller summa flatbed cutter paired up with a used or cheaper router table, trying to keep under 100k for both. Summa flatbed for print/cut stuff, router table for the aluminum signs and carved stuff. But I'd much rather just get one machine, space and headache wise.
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So anybody run either or both of these machines I'd love to hear your feedback. Is it worth fitting a shop sabre with optiscout and knives? How does the workflow compare to colex for print/cut? Does your colex like to do large runs of small thin aluminum signs with applied vinyl? Do you do much carved stuff on colex, wish you had more gantry clearance?
